Abstract
This paper presents a simple and low-cost fabrication method of thermo pneumatic micropump with very thin polyimide (Pi) membrane. The measurement and functional testing of the whole micropump system is investigated as well. The thermo-pneumatic micropump consists of three main components, such as micro heater, thin film membrane with thermal cavity and planar valve with diffuser nozzle. Three different processes were used to fabricate the micropump due to different material used in each component. The thin polyimide membrane acts as an actuator and actuated by thermal expansion volume in thermal chamber. The diameter and the thickness of the actuator diaphragm are 2 mm2 and 3.5 µm, respectively. The meniscus motion in the outlet tube is observed with a microscope image video and the flow rate of the micropump is calculated through the frame analysis of the recorded video data. The flow rate range of the micropump is about 770 pL to 12.5 nL at approximately 33.5–63.5 °C, when the input voltage of 2–12 V applied to the micro heater. This flow rate range is suitable to be used with artificial kidney function, nano pipet and other biomedical application.
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